She confesses that she wishes she knew of some way to make her little Alfie grow into a larger, more dignified tortoise. One morning, Mrs Silver mentions to Mr Hoppy that even though she has owned Alfie for many years, he has only grown a tiny bit and has gained only 13 ounces in weight. Mrs Silver has a small pet tortoise, Alfie, who is the centre of her world. She lives in the flat below his, and he frequently leans over his balcony and exchanges polite conversations with Mrs Silver, but his courage fails him whenever he prepares to hint at his true feelings for her.

For many years, he has had a secret love whose name was Mrs Silver. Mr Hoppy is a shy elderly man who lives alone in an apartment, tending to his many plants, which have been the center of his life since he retired from his job in a bus garage several years before. In 2015 it was adapted by Richard Curtis into a BBC television film, Roald Dahl's Esio Trot, featuring Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench as the couple, with James Corden narrating. In 1994, Monty Python star Michael Palin provided the English language audiobook recording of the book. Unlike other Dahl works (which often feature tyrannical adults and heroic/magical children), Esio Trot is the story of an ageing, lonely man (Mr Hoppy), trying to make a connection with a person that he has loved from afar (his widowed neighbour, Mrs Silver). Published on 3 September 1990, it was the last of Dahl's books to be published in his lifetime he died just two months later.

Esio Trot is a children's novel written by British author Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake.

Roald dahl book about tortoise